State spent €380k maintaining ship LÉ Aisling

The State spent €380,000 in 11 months maintaining the decommissioned LÉ Aisling, it has emerged.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny revealed the figure yesterday in the wake of controversy over the vessel’s offer for sale for €650,000 in the Netherlands over the weekend, some eight weeks after she was auctioned off by the State for just €110,000.

Mr Kenny told the Dáil that the cost of assigning a skeleton crew to maintain the vessel at the Irish Naval Service headquarters in Haulbowline in Co Cork, from her decommissioning in June 2015 until she was brought by tug to the Netherlands last April by the man who bought her at auction in March, amounted to €370,000.